The Stack is a weekly podcast where we share and discuss the latest trends, news, and content from the world of marketing, sales, and tech. In each episode, Sean, Tim, and Ryan sit down to chat about the hard-hitting questions related to sales, marketing, and tech. You can subscribe on iTunes, Soundcloud, Spotify, and Google Play Music.
In this episode, we talk about Google’s announcement of a core algorithm change, Google Chrome Lite Pages, and how to uninstall WordPress plugins on certain pages. We would love to hear your thoughts so make sure to comment or tweet us at @Sylvestrer1, @SeanHenri, and @Tendrecroppes or @PepperlandMKTG.
Chrome Lite Pages – For a faster, leaner loading experience
Chromium Blog
Chrome Lite pages will automatically optimize a web page to make it load faster when a user has a poor connection or when the overall page size is too large. When a user is facing data restrictions, such as poor connection, Google will automatically produce a “Lite” version of the page and display “Lite” at the beginning of the URL as an indicator that this is not the original webpage. If the Lite version is not to the users liking, they will have an option to load and view the original page.
Key Takeaways:
- This will be a good option for users when they are pressed for data
- It’s important for businesses to understand this isn’t just a “pass” you should still be concerned with page speed.
- Here are some things you can do to help with page speed
- Lazy load large images or videos
- Move large images below the fold
- Optimize images for correct pixel size
- Keep track of your plugins
How to Disable WordPress Plugins From Loading on Specific Pages and Posts
Carlo Daniele for Kinsta
Most of our WordPress sites are scattered with plugins that can slow down our page performance. Many of these plugins are only valuable on a few pages of our website. So why should their code slow down every page instead of just those few? The extra execution of this code drastically affects page performance and will have a negative effect on your rankings and bounce rate. Being able to turn off certain plugins will help priority pages load faster and improve rankings.
As an example, consider a plugin that builds and displays custom forms on front pages, like Contact Form 7. Typically, you would only need one form on a single page, but ideally, you may want to embed a form on any page using the plugin’s shortcode. For this reason, Contact Form 7 loads scripts and styles on every page of your website.
Key Takeaways:
- Reducing the number of plugins triggered on each page will improve site speed and reduce overall page size.
- Not all plugins are made for performance. Regularly auditing your plugins will help you understand how widespread their code actually is.
- If you haven’t upgraded to WordPress 5.0 you might still be dealing with two additional scripts that are site-wide.
Google SearchLiaison – Core Algorithm Update
@searchliaison
Google announced a core algorithm update this past week which promptly resulted in an uproar in the marketing community. A flurry of people posting their search console rankings drastically drop and rise flooded the comments. As usual, we don’t have a crystal clear idea of what the update actually affected but always gives us a wake-up call to keep a close eye on our data to see what could be changing.
As with any update, some sites may note drops or gains. There’s nothing wrong with pages that may now perform less well. Instead, it’s that changes to our systems are benefiting pages that were previously under-rewarded….
Key Takeaways:
- Pay attention to your data in the coming weeks to see how this has affected your content.
- Take this opportunity to refresh you and your team about Google’s guidelines
- Always strive to create the best and honest content that you can
App Of The Week
Data GIF Maker
Google’s Data GIF Maker tool helps people convey data in an interesting way through GIF animation. As you can see below, we quickly pulled together some internal office rankings. This data chart is titled “Racetrack” which helps to show percentages or can be used to show completion of a project or task.
The Data GIF Maker has 3 different types of GIFs in their library, the one below, Rectangles, and Circles. Each graph can show the same data with a different visual animation.
Use Cases:
- Use in a statistics blog post
- Show the results of a survey
- Show completion of a project
- Show percentages of searches to a particular page
The Lightning Round: What We’re Reading This Week
In this section, we quickly run through some other updates that we didn’t have enough time to deep-dive on, but we still felt were noteworthy.
- Hotjar adds combined filtering, negative filters, and saved segments to the session recording tool.
- Wistia adds the ability to publish videos directly from Wistia account to LinkedIn
- Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are still down for some users around the world
- Twitter reveals a big change to conversations and new camera
- Wistia Show & Tell
Listen or watch for new episodes each Friday, or check out the archives to watch past episodes on-demand. Like what you hear? Leave us a review or let us know in the comments!
